G.I.’s in Iraq Ready for Rest, but Hardly at Ease

DAMIEN CAVE

Sunday

Sep 30, 2007 at 4:31 AM

Some in the 10th Mountain Division’s Second Brigade worry about what their minds will carry back.

MAHMUDIYA, Iraq — On bases big and small south of Baghdad, the scrambled reality of war has become routine: an unending loop of anxious driving in armored Humvees, gallons of Gatorade, laughter at the absurd and 4 a.m. raids into intimate Iraqi bedrooms.

This is Iraq for the 3,300 soldiers of the 10th Mountain Division’s Second Brigade, and many have come to the unfortunate realization that it now feels more like home than home.

No brigade in the Army has spent more days deployed since Sept. 11, 2001, and with only a few weeks to go before ending their 15-month tour, the soldiers here are eager to go. But they are also nervous about what their minds will carry back, given the psychic toll of war day after day and the prospect of additional tours.

Heartache can be heard in the quiet voice of Specialist Gerald Barranco-Oro, who at 22 is on his second tour of Iraq and will leave for home without two close friends who were killed May 19.

There are other losses, too: for fathers like Staff Sgt. Kirk Ray, 25, whose 2-year-old daughter screams when he calls because “she doesn’t know who I am”; and for those who must detach to keep going, like Specialist Jesse Herb, 20, who casually mentioned recently that the ceiling above his bed was dented with the bone fragments of a lieutenant who shot and killed himself there a few months ago.

“Every day I wake up,” he said, “I see little pieces of his head.”

Most of the soldiers accept their lot. Shaped by experience, they fit in here. Re-enlistment rates across the brigade are running above the Army’s goals, and soldiers in six platoons said in interviews that they still loved their jobs: the camaraderie, the sense of mission, the ability to play a role in history.

It also helps, they said, that they will head back to Fort Drum in New York with a sense of accomplishment. Several thousand Iraqi volunteers are now working alongside the Americans to fight Sunni Islamic extremists, and once hostile villages in their area have quieted down.

But even if the gains last — and many soldiers consider them fragile — the consequences continue to add up. From the Second Brigade’s 2004-2005 deployment until now, at least 82 soldiers from the brigade and its attached units have been killed in combat in Iraq. Two others, Specialist Alex R. Jimenez, 25, and Pvt. Byron W. Fouty, 19, are still missing after being kidnapped in an ambush on May 12.

Each case is more than a statistic. It is a catastrophe, devastating dozens and inflicting emotional wounds.

Units recover, but burdens remain, especially for soldiers who must step in for those killed. Sgt. Ryan McDonald, 21, for example, filled the squad leader position held by his friend Sgt. Justin D. Wisniewski, 22, who was killed May 19 when he stepped on a pressure-detonated bomb on a trail of soft dirt near Latafiya.

The two young men came up together, studying tactics, sharing drinks at home and competing in Battery A, Task Force 2-15, a field artillery unit based in Mahmudiya. When Sergeant Wisniewski died, Sergeant McDonald was only a few feet away. In the aftermath, he cursed in anger but still managed to console another severely wounded soldier with four words: “I love you, man.”

Recently, Sergeant McDonald found himself near the spot again, leading soldiers through another area littered with bombs on footpaths. He initially played tough when asked about his friend’s death. “You deal with it,” he said, leaning on the brick wall of a house his men were searching.

But he later softened. After warning soldiers away from soft dirt, he said that correcting them always made him think of Sergeant Wisniewski.

“He was tough,” Sergeant McDonald said.

Specialist Barranco-Oro remembered him as a joker, a wiry leader from Standish, Mich., who was nicknamed Ski. Specialist Barranco-Oro had been close not just with Sergeant Wisniewski, but also with another soldier shot that same day by a sniper, Pfc. Matthew Bean of Pembroke, Mass.

Private Bean later died. Specialist Barranco-Oro, a medic, said he still wished he could have been there to help. He was in another patrol area at the time.

The shock, he said, has flooded back as his return home approaches. “You would never, never think one of your friends won’t be there with you,” Specialist Barranco-Oro said. “Never.”

“You make so many plans: ‘We’re gonna go to Bean’s wedding and live it up; we’re going to Standish with Ski and go hunting and to party it up.’”

He leaned forward and stared straight ahead.

“We’ll still go see the families and stuff,” he said. “But it’s going to be different.”

His friends live on through his grief. Songs jog memories. He said he might get a tattoo of their names “so they won’t be forgotten,” and in the meantime, he said, he talked to God about them every night.

“You wouldn’t think it would stay with you this long,” he said.

In fact, going home often creates another cycle of grief, said Lt. Col. Reagon P. Carr, the behavioral health officer for the Second Brigade. Many soldiers return feeling not just down but also guilty for having survived, Colonel Carr said.

The Army screens returning soldiers for post-traumatic stress disorder and other signs of trouble, but for many, the struggle has already begun. During one recent week, Colonel Carr said, he met with 3 soldiers contemplating suicide, 12 who could not sleep, 5 who feared returning to a dysfunctional marriage and 16 who said they were disgruntled about their leadership.

“A lot of soldiers here, from what they’ve seen or witnessed, will go back very on edge,” he said. “It is a cumulative effect, especially when you have a short time between deployments.”

The challenge for most consists of figuring out “how to keep Iraq in Iraq and how to keep home at home,” said Capt. Rich West, the chaplain in Mahmudiya.

Several soldiers said they feared free time at home and the thoughts that might arise. Few have told their families the details of what they have seen, or how accustomed they have become to a surreal routine with no 9 to 5, no errands, no bills, no diapers — just a series of moments that snap from frightening to odd, and then back again.

On one recent patrol near Abu Ghraib, for instance, a group of Second Brigade soldiers received wet kisses from a barefoot old woman with tattoos as they searched her backyard for nitric acid that could be used in explosives.

A few days later, during a clearing operation west of Mahmudiya, Sergeant McDonald’s platoon discovered a bearded Iraqi man whose right ankle was chained to a rusty engine block. Dazed and sitting outside, he looked like a victim of Sunni insurgents. The soldiers immediately tensed, weapons ready, until an older man identified himself as the prisoner’s uncle and the man who shackled him.

“He’s crazy,” the uncle said.

Stunned looks appeared all around. “Joe, is he crazy?” the platoon leader asked his interpreter.

When the interpreter answered yes, the soldiers could only laugh. The tension was released.

It was just another sign that the war here, as it continues on and on, can be banal, a groove well worn by a shared sense of humor and knowing glances that say “only in Iraq, only in Iraq.”

Detachment comes and goes. As Colonel Carr said, his treatment in the field must be limited; soldiers are taught to cope so they can go out and do their jobs.

Most do, and do it well. Specialist Herb, a member of the unit searching for nitric acid, said that when he moved into his trailer in July, his trailer’s blinds were still spotted with dried blood from the lieutenant who killed himself. After cleaning the mess, he said, he now sleeps just fine. “Me and my roommate flipped for who was going to live on that side,” he said, sitting behind the wheel of a grumbling Humvee. “I lost.”

With their tolerance for war increased, many soldiers say they feel stronger, having faced a test and passed. Their families may ultimately be the ones left out, as they try to connect with loved ones forever changed.

This is exactly what many soldiers fear. For Sergeant Ray, who has spent a total of about 30 months in Iraq with the Second Brigade and other units, this deployment has been particularly tough. He and his wife have been deployed since last summer; he patrols south of Baghdad, she works in Mosul, in the north. As a result, his 7-year-old stepson and 2-year-old daughter now live with their grandparents in New Jersey.

He still loves the Army, valuing the work, the brotherhood of his platoon and the military’s promise of financial stability, he said. His wife will get out soon, however, and he cannot help wondering about the war’s effect on his daughter.

“I think she’s just confused,” he said, as the sun set on the date palms south of Baghdad. “She’s right at that age. She turned 2 in August, so she’s just starting to talk and realize what’s going on. And neither one of us is there.”

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